Posted
by
timothyon Monday August 08, 2011 @02:11AM
from the sorry-about-the-eye dept.

angry tapir writes "Meet the Firefly. Israeli defense contractor Rafael Armament Development Authority calls it a 'revolutionary concept in tactical intelligence,' but really it's a wireless camera that's shot 500 feet in the air by a grenade launcher. And if a couple of hackers at the Defcon hacking convention get their way, soon anyone will be able to buy this type of military grade technology for only US$500."

What I don't get is why they wouldn't have it deploy a chute at the top of the arc like launching a flare designed to light up a battlefield (sorry don't know the tech term for it) so that one would actually get a useful amount of time after launch? And on the upside it would give something to distract the bad guys whom I'm sure would look up with a serious WTF look on their faces as to why they were launching a flare and why it was a dud.

But that doesn't make any sense, as you MIGHT get a half a second of useful data that way before it hits something or bounces under a chair or whatever. Also I doubt you'd get even 8 seconds before it was useless if you did it that way. I mean did you look at the thing? The camera is dead center front, so unless you shot it directly AT the bad guy in most situations I doubt you'd get even a second's worth of useful data.

But I can see this might be useful if you put a chute on its rear as that would point th

The picture you are looking at is the homemade version. I would expect the military model to include PTZ, and maybe some form of movement, or if it is for firing into the air, maybe it does include a chute. I tried to find the actual military version, or something about it, but was unable to find it. The only item I can come up with is this story about a guy building his own unit for $500.

The powder didn't fully ignite, the miniature camera flew about 30 feet into the air -- apparently too fast to transmit images back to the 5.8Ghz wireless receiver they were using -- and their parachute partially incinerated.

So clearly it has a parachute. Why don't you read before you complain about how you think it should work?

Because I don't read ads and when TFA has a good 75-85% of the text being what Wikipedia calls "Peacock words" aka bullshit? Well I don't sit around reading pop ups on my customers boxes either. If they want us to read TFA how about not making it a slashvertisement, huh?

hmm I wonder why you got -1.
Anyways. I don't get it. I look on my user page it shows my comment score is 4. I click comments it shows 5. I look at the thread, it shows 5. The user page should show 5. So.. the user page only goes to 4? Doesn't make any sense.

Actually, lahvak, good point. We did actually discuss a giant water balloon type slingshot for the camera modules. But that takes 3 guys to deploy, and would be another piece of equipment. We might test that out sometime, but for right now, we're concentrating on the one model to get all the electronics working, and have a good prototype. Branching out might happen later.
Joshua

One simple reason why this new camera is so awesome: speed. Try shooting something out of the sky when it's moving at 2 - 4 mph. Not that hard (heck, a skeet it moving a lot faster than that). Besides, try getting it 500 feet into enemy territory in 8 seconds. Something shooting at the speed of a grenade launcher has such obvious superiorities. Granted, the whole 'one time use' thing kinda sucks, but they're the military; they're used to using it once and replacing it.

But while you're shooting at the thing in the sky you're giving away your position. The point of a UAV is to see where your enemy is, if your enemy is wasting their time shooting at the UAV in the sky then they've just given away their position. Mission accomplished!

And actually it's not easy to hit something moving at 4mph, especially if it's a good distance away like 300 meters. A man at 300 meters is about the size of the head of a needle held at arm's length, a very difficult target even if it's s

If history is to be believed, they will ignore the possibility that anything without a NATO stock number and a terrifying price tag could possibly be an issue and, once the contrary is proven in the field, will start talking about 'Improvised Surveillance Devices"...

Oh, I'm hardly going to deny that the cheap seats have some significant reliability issues at times. I was more commenting on the fact that, in those cases where the cheap seats turn out to be good enough, people rush to treat them as a novel phenomenon even when they are just a DIY/jury-rigged version of something that you've been able to get out of the expensive side of the menu for ages...

Wait until the military figures out you can do the same thing with a $11 keychain camera [youtube.com] and a toys 'r us r/c helicopter [youtube.com].
I have a few of those 808 keychain cameras and they shoot remarkably good video considering their size and disposable price.

So.... who gets the job of recovering the 808 keychain camera from enemy territory once it's been deployed to photograph said territory? Or did you plan on deploying on the end of a really long USB cable?

Well, for the first trick, just do what firemen do. Wear a vest containing phase-changing gel underneath a thick layer of insulation. It only works for 3-5 hours at a time in hot conditions, but that's not too bad.

more stuff created for war. These cameras instruments are not going to be sold to civilians, here is the purpose:

Soldiers shoot it off and for eight glorious seconds it gives them a bird's eye view of the terrain around them, tipping them off to enemy positions. Then it crashes back to earth.

Private citizens can't buy these flying cameras, much less the 40mm grenade launchers used to shoot them. But Vlad Gostom and Joshua Marpet think they'd be great tools for a search and rescue operation, or maybe a boon to some local police force's SWAT (special weapons and tactics) team. So they're building their own version and showing off what they've learned at Defcon this week.

of-course outside of a war or a 'rescue operation' there may be not much use for these things, but it just adds to resources that are mis-allocated for wars instead of going towards normal consumer market. The only use for consumer market I can think of is war games unfortunately, like paintball.

more stuff created for war. These cameras instruments are not going to be sold to civilians, here is the purpose:

...

of-course outside of a war or a 'rescue operation' there may be not much use for these things, but it just adds to resources that are mis-allocated for wars instead of going towards normal consumer market. The only use for consumer market I can think of is war games unfortunately, like paintball.

Hmmm, paintball.... being hit by a solid grenade-like projectile of non-negligible mass... I think I'll pass.

The only advantage of this "grenade like" wireless camera: can reach close to the enemies position in a short time... I can't imagine during civilian operations this can be an advantage... Except, possibly, in building fires - in which an UAV mounted camera won't survive and the situation can evolve quite fast.

Shooting people with cameras? I am not suggesting that, the camera is to be shoot up into the air to give you a glimpse of where the opponents are (and maybe your side as well).

Of-course this would look funny if too many people got themselves these in paintball and all started using them all at once, shooting cameras into the air. It would probably give out your position too.

You can buy a 40mm or 37mm flare launcher and strap it to your gun. It looks, acts, behaves, and 'is' a grenade launcher. If you have a grenade in the same building, area, etc. then you have two destructive devices. As long as it only has flares with it, its fine. I assume a camera should be a form of flare or inert projectile (ask the ATF), so these are likely completely legal.

Add 6k for an original M79 grenade launcher and another 600 for the pistol grip (or about the same for an AR-15), or scrimp and buy a new one for 2k. Yes, the damned tax stamp is needed. I'd just shoot them from an unregulated (in some states) 37mm flare launcher.

Seems to me that increasing that 8 seconds of recon should be relatively academic. How about adding a little parachute that could increase hang time immensely? Also, perhaps adding a gps transmitter would allow for reuse.

Seems to me that increasing that 8 seconds of recon should be relatively academic. How about adding a little parachute that could increase hang time immensely? Also, perhaps adding a gps transmitter would allow for reuse.

8 seconds is with a parachute. FTFA [techworld.com.au]:
"Their first test -- launched from a 37mm flare gun last week at a neighbor's farm -- wasn't exactly a raging success: The powder didn't fully ignite, the miniature camera flew about 30 feet into the air -- apparently too fast to transmit images back to the 5.8Ghz wireless receiver they were using -- and their parachute partially incinerated."

Hostile neighbors of their own making by coveting their neighbor's land.

Is it really of their own making? I think their primary sin is hubris. Or if you like, chutzpah. I still believe the nation of Israel was designed to foment hatred in the region, and so far, so good. Basically, keep the Jews from causing trouble by giving them a home where they have all the trouble they can eat...

Hostile neighbors of their own making by coveting their neighbor's land.

Is it really of their own making? I think their primary sin is hubris. Or if you like, chutzpah. I still believe the nation of Israel was designed to foment hatred in the region, and so far, so good. Basically, keep the Jews from causing trouble by giving them a home where they have all the trouble they can eat...

If that was the aim they would have been left to their own devices against the arabs. Instead their economy and their army are subsidized by the US while their safety is also guaranteed by the US. There would be no need to go that far just for those reasons. The border of the empire is defended with cheap (read free) expendable barbarians, not hugely expensive usurious jews.

If that was the aim they would have been left to their own devices against the arabs.

If that were the case they would likely have fallen and then the situation in the region would be free to resolve itself. Can't have that.

I understand what you mean:) But my point is they could have done it much cheaper, without paying for a western standard of living in Israel and for the israeli army they could have supported them substantially less, relying on western intervention to prop them up and control them too. As things are the israeli army is immensely powerful, a nuclear power, and not in a position to be manipulated by anybody. The reason for that is the yearly tribute trips the US congress takes to Israel to kowtow to their ma

But my point is they could have done it much cheaper, without paying for a western standard of living in Israel

Eh, it's not their money. It's ours. They have written the laws so that THEY don't really pay taxes, nor do the corporations which will employ them when they leave office. Oh sure, they pay half the taxes... but they own 95% of everything so I see a wee bit of disparity there.

But my point is they could have done it much cheaper, without paying for a western standard of living in Israel

Eh, it's not their money. It's ours. They have written the laws so that THEY don't really pay taxes, nor do the corporations which will employ them when they leave office. Oh sure, they pay half the taxes... but they own 95% of everything so I see a wee bit of disparity there.

I'm quite sure they view the entire economy as their domain and the population as their serfs. In their mind everything everywhere is theirs, including the pesky arabs that are sitting on their oil.:)

I don't disagree with your premise, but they have lots of money. Staying in control is the tricky part.

Yup. It's all about control. The money is just the means to that end. Which is why people assume wars had to be for a "higher purpose" since they cost a lot more than the winers could have gotten back. But it's never about profit. Control is the name of the game because it doesn't matter how profitable or not you are when you get utterly defeated- you lose everything.:)

You can currently get a remote controlled helicopter based camera that has a run time of 10+ mins.
Granted the training time is higher but the longer running time, cheaper cost(under $300) and greater capabilities (such as moving back and going in closer) make this a very niche market. The biggest market is going to be the people who want to have a close up view of the thing falling and breaking someones windows.

For the military it is great item, besides what you mentioned it is small, uses an existing delivery system, and you don't care where it lands.
However these people are aiming for the consumer market where the previous items I mentioned matter.

Perhaps it escaped notice, but grenade launchers have rifled barrels, and typically the launched projectile is spinning at 15,000 rpm. There might be some unrifled police models used for tear gas, but these will have horrible accuracy -- perhaps 100ft CEP at 500ft.

A camera on a parachute could be a useful thing, but stopping 15krpm isn't easy or quick, especially with only air. Maybe some DSP would work through the spin, but it will have to have a lot less shutter lag!:)

I dunno why flare launchers aren't rifled. Maybe the need for accuracy in shooting a flare is low: if it goes UP, instead of sideways, it's probably considered a success. The energy expended on making it spin could arguably be better spent on making it fly.

In the 90's, several programs developed artillery shells that mapped the terrain the shells flew over to a surprisingly usable degree of resolution. There are a lot of images available from these sorts of tests online via Google.

In addition, I helped design a camera that was packaged in a ball. The ball was thrown into a building, and a motorized counterweight moved the ball around more or less randomly. The transmitted video from two separate cameras was used to construct striped images of the interior (ro

Actually, the images streamed at 15 hz well before the unit was thrown. The 20 minutes was for a 3d reconstruction of available images from just a few minutes' random roaming through the apartment. The raw images recorded everything- the rotation of the ball as it was thrown, etc. It used a then-power-hungry 900 MHz link and was severely bandwidth limited. Today, the entire affair could be accomplished at significantly higher frame rates or resolution. We toyed with 1D image planes as well to improve TX spe

The video works until you put it in the launcher. The metal barrel is a pretty good "muffler" of signal. Then it goes off. You do get video back, but our first, and so far only test, was a failure of powder. The brand new batch of powder we got was not bloody burning. Argh. We are going to be rebuilding the system and redoing it in the next couple of weeks.
We do get video when we do static range tests, or walk the camera out a distance, and the camera we shot still works. So we're pleased with the

Obviously in the case of the Israeli device, using a launcher that soliders are likely already carrying around is a good thing, and that's why they would be willing to deal with the disadvantages of grenade launchers for something like this. (Anything combustion-powered causes very high shocks to whatever is being launched - not a big problem for grenades but more of a problem for cameras.)

If you're no longer assuming "launcher the user probably already has", then things get simpler - a pneumatic launcher

As a collector of NFA weapons myself, I can say that the article is incorrect about private citizens in the US not being able to purchase a 40mm grenade launcher. The 40mm grenade launcher is classified as a Destructive Device (DD) by the BATFE, and is regulated by the National Firearms Act of 1934, commonly referred to as NFA. All NFA weapons are tracked with mandated registration with the BATFE. Weapons regulated by the NFA are Title 2 weapons (Title 1 weapons are "normal" firearms you see in most gun st

Josh Marpet here @quadling on twitter.
Ok, few misconceptions. The launcher we are currently using is a Spike's Tactical 37mm launcher. It is smoothbore, and we don't need to stabilize it with rifling. Once it reaches altitude, it "turns over" and starts heading down. That's when the parachute deploys (standard model rocket parachute, no need to reinvent the wheel).
So if you get hit by it, it's not hard. It's essentially drifting down.
As for a keychain camera, I own several of them myself. Awesom